A Way to Go On
by spiderfire
Summary: From the Valvert Exchange Round #2 prompt: Post-Seine Javert suffers from PTSD after Valjean saved him from drowning and now Valjean tries to help him.
1. A week after the barricades fell

The prompter requested a story that was more of a fix-it and less of a realistic portrayal of PTSD. I think I wound up somewhere in the middle.

I spent a lot of time reading about suicide, moral injury and acute stress reaction when developing this story. I also listened to the Rush song "The Pass" and inordinate number of times while writing (and, of course, Javert at the Barricade and Javert's Suicide, in as many different recordings as I could find.)

* * *

"Honestly! This is ridiculous!" Javert crumpled the sheet of paper in his fist and flung himself back in the desk chair.

Valjean, who was sitting in a worn armchair across the room from the equally worn desk, looked up at Javert. They were in the comfortable, if somewhat shabby, sitting room of Rue de l'Homme-Armé. Two large east-facing windows stood open and allowed a bit of a breeze to stir the curtains. Despite the breeze, it was hot.

Javert glared at Valjean as Valjean just looked quietly back, saying nothing. Damn the man! How could he be so calm all the time? So distant. No, not distant, Javert corrected himself. If anything, that was the worst part. Valjean was so present. There was no escape.

With a wry smile, Valjean folded the newspaper and leaned forward. "It is highly unlikely to be ridiculous, Javert." Valjean's eyes took on a distant cast for a moment before he focused back on the other man. "Just try it," he said encouragingly. "Please."

Javert looked at, really looked at, Valjean: the crown of white hair, the trimmed beard, the deep lines around his eyes. Over the decades he had known Jean Valjean, Valjean's hair had changed from brown to grey to white and the lines on his face had deepened. If he looked hard enough, he could still see the shape of the shorn, long bearded brute whom he had first met in Toulon and the gentleman who had become mayor. The lines of anger had softened, overwritten by laughter. The fear was still there, though when it flashed at Javert, the shame he felt now made him turn away instead of filling him with the fierce joy of conquest he would have once felt. There was worry there, too, when Valjean looked at Cosette. Other times, Valjean would close his eyes, perhaps in prayer, and the quiet peace that Javert saw there filled him with envy. That face tormented him with its contradictions.

Like Javert, Valjean had shed his waistcoat and cravat as concessions to the heat. Valjean's shirt was unbuttoned from the neck and his shirt sleeves were folded up. In an hour, when Cossette and Toussaint would be back from the market, it occurred to him that Valjean would unroll his sleeves down over his wrists and button his collar, covering the scars that his past had left. Javert shook his head, recalling two or three occasions when he had watched him adjusting his shirt when Cosette arrived. He wondered why he had not made that connection before.

Valjean's face had grown familiar to him over the years, but over the last week that familiarity had taken on a new texture, a texture Javert could not yet describe. At night, he woke to that face when the nightmares became overwhelming. Valjean, would be sitting on the edge of his bed, gently shaking his shoulder. The serious, concerned face would drag him back from the tortured dreams that had haunted him since the barricade. At meal times, he would sit in his place, across from that face, silently toying with his food while Valjean and Cosette conversed. In the midst of the conversation, Valjean's eyes would lock on his with reproach. Pinned by the gaze, Javert would tear his eyes away and take a reluctant bite of the meal.

Suddenly defeated as he remembered Valjean's look of reproach, he pulled himself from his musing and turned back to the desk, breaking eye contact with Valjean. "This helped you?" he asked.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Valjean nod, patiently answering the question that Javert had asked him at least four times already. "It still does," he replied softly.

Javert looked sharply back at Valjean, a knot of horror forming in his stomach. _Still!_ Dear God. Would this be the shape of the rest of his life? Resolutely, he took another blank sheet of paper from the stack. "Fine," he said. "I will try again."

* * *

Javert had almost no idea how he came to be sitting here, under Jean Valjean's roof, sharing his table like he was a member of his family. A week and a half ago he had gone to the barricade. He remembered being recognized and bound, challenging the insurgents to just shoot him and be done with it. He remembered seeing Valjean at the barricade, but not how he came to leave. He remembered Valjean emerging from the sewer and the carriage ride with the injured boy. After that, there was nothing until he woke here, two days after the barricades fell, in Jean Valjean's guest room.

Valjean had told him his part in the story – freeing Javert at the barricade, Javert disappearing from outside his house and in the grip of exhaustion Valjean not thinking when he went out to search for Javert, arriving at Pont au Change in time to see Javert falling into the water, pulling him out and bringing him to his home. Yes, Javert had heard the story a couple of times now, but except for flashes, disconnected images, and the nightly demons that chased him through his sleep, the story Valjean told might have been of someone else. Not him. Not Javert.

He remembered that first morning when he woke in the guest room to see Valjean reading a newspaper in a chair across the room. He tried to leap to his feet, to shout, "You!" but his legs refused to support him and he had toppled back into the bed, blanketed by pain. Every part of him screamed as he looked at Valjean, his vision wavering and distorted. _Where am I?_, he asked himself as he blacked out.

The next two days he spent in bed, wracked by fits of coughing and a fever that came and went. Valjean and Cosette wandered into and out of his vision. He closed his eyes and tried not to think, but thoughts drifted to his mind, encapsulated in bubbles where he could not touch them. This man was a convict. Yes, that was true. Convicts can not change. Yes. It was his duty to arrest this man. Yes.

No.

He did not know where this thought came from, but he knew it to be true.

Once he was strong enough to be up out of bed, he had moved about in a daze, speaking little, eating only when pressed. He felt he was a ghost, a specter in Valjean's house. Though hardly prone to such flights of fancy, more than once Javert considered the possibility that he might really be dead. Activity whirled around him. The girl Cosette was all a-flutter about a boy, Marius. The boy had been injured at the barricades. _"Marius,"_ Javert mused. _"I once knew a boy named Marius."_ It was easy for Javert to fade into the background amidst the comings and goings, to sit on the bed for hours, looking at nothing, feeling nothing, thinking nothing.

Leaving this place had not actually occurred to him until yesterday, when it came to him that he wanted a drink. Not the customary wine with dinner, or the gentlemanly nightcap he accepted when Valjean offered it to him each night. No, he wanted to really drink until he had had so much there would be no dreams in his sleep, until he remembered nothing of barricades and convicts and duty. He got dressed to go and then realized he had no money. Frustrated, he had collapsed in that chair, that chair that Valjean was now sitting in, and his eyes had alighted on the nearly full bottle of cognac on the sideboard.

He had woken with a blinding headache, feeling utterly exhausted. His boots had been pulled off but he was otherwise dressed, lying on top of the covers of the bed. With a groan, he sat up and put his head in his hands. His stomach gurgled menacingly. God, he had not felt this awful since…since...since…well, since that night back in Toulon when he had gotten promoted and some of the other young guards had taken him out to celebrate. He had wound up matching drinks with an arms-man from one of the ships in port. Young and stupid, it was weeks before he lived that night down. He had not been drunk since. Snuff, in tiny quantities, only sometimes, was what he allowed himself. _Snuff,_ he told himself, _does not let you forget._ Rubbing his temples with his fingertips, it occurred to him, he did not consort with criminals either. What was wrong with him? What was he doing here?

By lunch-time the headache had faded and his stomach had settled down. They sat together. This time, Javert remembered to wait while Valjean said a quiet blessing. They shared a platter of sliced meats and cheese, which is to say Javert had a single slice of each on his place that he was poking at and worrying with his fork, while Valjean steadily worked his way through a respectable serving. While eating, Valjean suggested he try writing about the barricade. Javert scoffed at the idea. However, his ability to resist had worn thin. He did not recognize himself, anymore. He was beginning to wonder if the man distantly remembered had just been a dream. When Valjean suggested it a second time an hour later, he agreed to try.

* * *

Javert set the pen down and sat back in the chair. He clenched and unclenched his ink-stained hand, working the kinks out. As he did so, he watched his hand trembling slightly in exhaustion. The illness of the last week had taken its toll on his stamina. Judging from the shadows and the creak of his joints, he had been writing for a long time.

Reports, duty logs, he usually hated writing. He struggled for words to precisely explain the circumstances. This had been different. Once he had started, the words had come pouring out of him. He stared blankly at the pages he had filled with his cramped, precise writing, wondering what they contained.

There was a noise and he looked over to see Valjean set a book down. "Are you done?"

Javert looked back at the pages, feeling curiously empty and relaxed. It was a pleasant feeling after the days where his insides had been twisted in knots. Not looking at Valjean, he nodded.

"There is a flint and steel in the drawer, and a dish to catch the ashes."

Javert lit the candle and took the dish out. It was a chipped bowl of the same pattern as the dinner-ware. Valjean walked over and put a hand lightly on Javert's shoulder. Javert looked up. Valjean spoke softly. "I usually say a bit of a prayer as I watch the papers burn. It can be…hard. Do you want me to leave?"

Curiously, Javert found he did not. He shook his head as he touched the first page to the flames. He watched in fascination as the flames took hold and engulfed the paper, holding onto it until the flames licked at his fingers. It was strangely mesmerizing as the paper changed from substantial and white to having great black blotches consume it, the writing disappearing as the ink faded into the black. Finally then, words consumed, the black turned to back white, now an insubstantial feathery ash. When he could hold it no longer, he dropped the flaming remnant into the bowl as the fire consumed the last traces.

When all of the pages were gone, he sat, staring at the bowl of soot for a long moment. His stomach growled. It came to him, that for the first time since he had come here, he was hungry. With an emotion very like wonder, he looked up at Valjean and said, "Thank you."

Valjean put his hand on Javert's shoulder again and met his gaze. For a moment, they shared that connection. Then, Valjean smiled. "Let's see if Toussaint has dinner ready, shall we?"


	2. Late June

"Ready?" Valjean asked.

Javert was sitting at the desk, again. Over the last week, he had repeated this ritual maybe a dozen times, sometimes in the night when a nightmare drove him from his sleep, other times during the day. The cumulative effect was tangible. He was eating again and last night he had had his first full night of sleep since the barricade. At the moment, Valjean stood next to him, the blade hidden in his hand. "No," he answered.

Valjean looked at him questioningly. "You changed your mind?" he asked. "You do not have to do this."

Exasperated, Javert shook his head. "Put it down." As an afterthought, he belatedly added, "please."

Valjean started to reach out. Suddenly Javert put his hand over Valjean's. "No, wait." Valjean stopped and looked down at Javert.

Javert leaned back in his chair and looked up at Valjean. "Why are you helping me?" he asked.

Valjean looked away to the far side of the room, toward the unlit fireplace. It was a plain fireplace with a simple mantle. There was a small clock, flanked by two silver candlesticks. Hanging over the clock was a simple crucifix. Javert followed his gaze and then looked back at Valjean, "Someone once helped me," Valjean replied quietly. "He could have destroyed me, sent me back to the bagne, but he did not." Valjean looked back at Javert. "That is a story for another time."

Valjean shifted his weight, and then he added, "I think that is the wrong question."

"What do you mean?" Javert asked.

"I think the question you need to be asking is not why I am helping you. It is why you are accepting help." Valjean pressed his lips together and looked away, adding in a voice that was barely over a whisper, "Why are you accepting _my_ help?"

With a sigh Javert turned back to the paper on the desk. That was a question he had been avoiding for days. Brusquely, even rudely, he said "Show me the knife, Valjean."

Valjean opened his hand and set the knife in the center of the desk. His hand was trembling as he set it down, but Javert's eyes were fastened on the blade.

Javert stared at the knife. He had seen it before, of course. Most recently, just an hour ago when Valjean had pulled it from his pocket and used it to trim a hangnail. They had been playing chess. Javert had just finished his move and he looked up to see it in Valjean's hands. Wide eyed he had stared at it as it flashed in the lamplight, and suddenly he was back in that place as the memory came flooding back to him.

_There was the smell of the gunpowder mixed with blood and the reek of a gut wound. He could hear the moans of the injured rebels laid out near where he was tied. A shadow fell across him and he looked up into Valjean's face. Jean Valjean. Who else would it be? He felt the man's tremendous strength as he was dragged to his feet by the breast band of martingale that bound him. Valjean prodded him with a gun and he stumbled ahead, struggling to walk because of the hobbles on his ankles, the bent posture the ropes forced him into, and stiffness from the hours of being restrianed. He wondered if Valjean would shoot him in the back or turn him face to face before he did it._

_Valjean shoved him against a wall and stepped close, too close. Javert could smell the garlic on Valjean's breath and the gunpowder on his clothes. Valjean pulled the knife from his pocket._

_"Yes," Javert taunted. "A surin is more your style."_

_The knife flashed before his eyes. He expected it to slide between his ribs, but no. Valjean sliced easily through the ropes, severing the collar of the martingale. Valjean turned him, pressing him against the wall, pinning his face against the rough wood of the building. He closed his eyes, waiting for the knife to slide across his throat or slip into his back. Instead, he felt a slight tug on his arms and the rope that bound his hands were severed. Abruptly, the pressure was off him as Valjean knelt to cut the rope between his feet. He turned to face Valjean. There were words. Then Valjean pushed him and Javert stumbled down the alley. The gun rang out behind him and he flinched, yet he was not shot in the back._

The knife that lay before him was both more and less than the knife he had grown in his mind. The blade was unadorned, a just hand-span in length, but polished until it shone. The hilt was made of some wood, smooth and darkened with years of handling. It was a simple, well made knife that a gentleman might take hunting.

On closer inspection though, as with the man it belonged to, the knife told an entirely different story. This was not a hunting knife, this was a sailor's knife, a rigging knife, or it had once been. Javert recognized it from his years in Toulon. Sailors wear these knives sheathed in the small of their backs, not tucked in a pocket as Valjean did. A rigging knife would have a blunted tip, but this knife had been sharpened to point. The edge was equally sharp. Gingerly, Javert picked it up and turned it over in his hand, examining it. He had called Valjean's blade a _surin_ in contempt, but this knife made him wonder.

He put down the knife and took up the pen. Slowly at first, and then with increasing speed, Javert began to write.

* * *

"Would you tell me about the knife?" Javert asked.

Dinner was over. Valjean had been gone when Javert had finished writing and when Javert went to burn the pages, it felt strange, watching them burn alone. He had gone looking for Valjean, to return the knife. Standing outside of Valjean's room, he had been about to knock when he noticed the door was cracked. Peering through the crack, he saw Valjean had his back to the door as he knelt in prayer. Silently, he had withdrawn and returned to his own room. He had sat there, absently flipping through the Bible, trying to understand what had happened this afternoon.

When Valjean reappeared at dinner, he had seemed as he always was. Pleasant, collected, calm. Javert handed the knife back to Valjean as they sat and Valjean took it with a nod.

After dinner, Javert and Valjean had returned to the sitting room. Cosette had retired for the night. Sitting back in his chair, Valjean shrugged. "There is not much to tell. You know the story of my escape?"

"In 1823? I read in the paper that you had drowned in a fall from the rigging of a ship. How you came to be in the rigging…" Javert shook his head. "You were not chained to another convict?"

"Oh, I was. Some of the guards who knew me were still there. There was no chance I'd be left uncoupled, no matter how old I was."

Javert nodded, forgetting where he was for the moment. "Sensible."

Valjean looked at him without expression for several seconds. In the silence, Javert realized he had crossed a line with Valjean, perhaps for the second time today. Before he could respond, Valjean continued his story. "We were resupplying a ship when one of the sailors who was checking the ropes on the mainsail slipped. He was walking on one of the yardarms and fell into the rigging. He managed to grab a rope, but he was also tangled and could not free himself enough to climb to safety."

"Like everyone else, I stood on the dock and watched. It was clear that he was not going to last long. 'Shorty,' I said to my chain-mate, 'put that down. Come on!' I dragged him over to a guard and I asked permission to help the sailor. The guard barely even looked at me when he told me to go ahead so I broke the chain and went to help. I grabbed a knife as I ran over the deck and climbed up to help him."

"You broke the chain…"

"With a hammer." Valjean gave Javert a wry smile. "You know how tools get left around the dock when you let convicts use them."

Javert dropped his chin and looked levelly at Valjean. "You can't break the chain with a hammer," he said.

Valjean's smile broadened, but he said nothing.

For a moment, Javert was again a guard, his dismay uncomplicated. "The chain was filed! Three months in and you were planning to escape?"

Valjean shrugged. "I was fortunate, as was that sailor, that you were not the guard I went to for permission."

It would not be until later that night, when getting ready for bed, that Javert would realize what happened next. He did not throw dry wood on the constant fire of anger he had once kept in his chest when he heard of the incompetence of the guard, the facts he had failed to observe. Instead, Javert smiled. He almost even laughed in genuine pleasure at the absurdity of it all. After a moment, he replied, "Yes, I suppose you were."

They were quiet for a few minutes. Javert idly twisted the nearly empty glass in his fingers, watching the amber liquid swirl against the clear glass. He imagined the scene as it unfolded. He pictured Valjean scampering through the rigging, like a giant spider in its web, the knife clenched in his teeth. He pictured him cutting the sailor free, supporting him as he found his hand holds. He saw Valjean bring the man to the deck. He wondered what had happened to that sailor, that man who was alive because of Valjean's quick thinking, Valjean's strength. Had he returned to the sea? Or left it, after his close escape?

With a sigh, he wondered how many men owed their lives to Valjean. The man with the cart, in Montreuil-sur-Mer, for sure. The convicts and guards who had been given precious minutes to escape when the Toulon building threatened to fall on them. Almost certainly Cosette. Marius.

He bit his lip and added himself to the list. Twice.

Javert pictured Valjean as he must have appeared after his escape: his white hair cut to stubble, dressed in some shapeless peasant shirt, as he sat in an empty tavern room carefully sharpening the blade with slow, even strokes of the stone. He pictured Valjean as he was now getting dressed in the morning, tucking the sheathed knife in his pocket.

"Anyway, after I got the sailor back to the deck of the ship, I shimmied down one of the mooring lines to get back to the dock. I must have slipped," Valjean continued. He grinned at Javert. "When I hit the water, I swam. I was able to hide under the dock until nightfall, and then I made my way by water out of the dockyard and into the city. They thought I drowned in the fall, so no cannon. I had about six months of freedom until you found me."

Javert finished his glass of wine and set it aside. "I remember. My commissaire thought I was out of my mind."

They sat together in silence, each lost in their own thoughts.

"Anyway," Valjean said, interrupting the silence, "that's the story of the knife."

Javert nodded. After a short pause, he added, "Why did you keep it?"

Valjean searched Javert's face. "A good knife is always useful," he replied quietly.

"And a knife such as this," Javert guessed, "gives the bearer a certain status."

Valjean shook his head, "It is just a knife, Javert. A good knife, to be sure, but that's all."

Again there was silence. Javert was aware of an uncomfortable tension that was coiled between them. He looked toward the mantle where Valjean had looked earlier in the day. _"Someone once helped me,"_ he heard Valjean say.

He looked away from the mantle and hesitantly he spoke. "Jean?"

Valjean looked up sharply from the knife he had been turning over in his hand. It was the first time that Javert had used Valjean's Christian name.

"I…I went too far today," Javert found himself saying. "I am .."

The look on Valjean's face was complex, pained but also strangely pleased. "Hush," he replied softly. "You are hurt."

Javert shook his head. "Let me finish!" he insisted. "I am sorry for how I treated you. I have taken your hospitality for granted, returned your generosity with ill-thoughts. I do not understand how you can treat me so kindly, after what I have done to you, but…" he looked away and finished in barely a whisper, "I am grateful."

With a small smile mostly in his eyes, Valjean spoke quietly, "It was a hard day, for both of us."

Javert stood, "I think I am going to go to bed. Good night, Jean, and thank you."

"Sleep well, Javert," Valjean replied softly.

Javert could feel Valjean's eyes on him as he left.


	3. July

Javert woke in the middle of the night, not with a nightmare, not with Valjean sitting by his bedside, but for some other reason. Quietly, he got up and pulled on his robe.

It was his robe now, familiar and comfortable, not the one he had borrowed over the first few weeks of his stay. Last week he had thought that maybe he would return to living in his own place. He was sleeping, eating regularly and he was beginning to feel physically more like himself, even if he was still confused about things he had taken for granted his whole life.

* * *

One evening, a week before at dinner, an excited Cosette chattered continuously about the improvements in Marius's health and then left the table to write another pointless, enormous missive to him. It was more than a full day since Javert had sat at the desk to write and he suggested his plan to return to his home to Valjean. Valjean listened, oddly quiet and subdued. When Javert was finished explaining why he wanted to leave, Valjean turned away, his hand resting on the mantle near one of the candlesticks. He said softly, "If that is what you wish, Javert."

Javert frowned at Valjean's back. He thought he heard the man's voice crack. He started to walk over to Valjean, but he stopped a pace away. Valjean was standing with his shoulders slumped and trembling. Javert lifted his hand to put it on Valjean's shoulder. He held it there, suspended in mid-air for a moment, and then he dropped it and turned away.

An hour later, he was back in the guest room, though he kept thinking about it as his room despite himself, and he took out his uniform's jacket. It was the first time he had paid much attention to it in several weeks, though it had been cleaned and brushed and returned to him a while ago. He sat in a chair opposite the bed, his chin in his hands and stared at the coat.

He remembered returning to his home after Valjean had released him from the barricade and before he had gone back on duty. He had stripped his rebel costume off and stood naked before the armoire, staring at his uniform. With a kind of dread he had never felt before, he had taken it from its hanger and put it on. Once the uniform was on, instead of the comfort it usually brought him, he had felt like he had donned a tremendous weight.

Tearing himself away from the jacket he laid out on the guest bed, he returned to the sitting room to see if Valjean had wanted to share a drink but Valjean was nowhere to be found. He sat down with the bottle, the heavy weight of his uniform still on his mind. The weight of his duty sunk him to the bottom of that bottle.

Hours later, he was vaguely aware of an anguished cry of "Javert! Dear God! What have you done!" It was Valjean, gathering him up in his impossibly strong arms. Valjean's hand wrapped around his left wrist and the pressure hurt. Javert tried to resist, to pull free but Valjean growled at him. "Damnit, Javert, stop fighting me! I am trying to help you!" With a groan, Javert had lost consciousness. Perhaps it was his imagination, but he thought he heard Valjean plead, "Javert, don't you leave me too."

The next day, they went together to his apartment and packed his things. There was no question. Javert knew he should not be living alone. Valjean had found him in time. Again.

* * *

Absently, he adjusted the bandage that still wrapped his wrist a week later. Once he would have worried about the debt he was amassing, a debt he could never repay. He would never have allowed himself to be in arrears to a convict. He would have denied that he needed help at all. Now, though there were many things he was still unclear about, he knew that part of him did not want to die. He knew that the help was freely offered. He knew that his feelings for and about Valjean had metamorphosed into something entirely new.

Javert walked down the hall, unsurprised to see a candle lit in the sitting room. As he turned the corner, he found Valjean sitting at the desk, writing. Valjean did not look up, he just wrote and wrote, his hand in constant motion. His hair was askew with sleep. In the flickering candle light, he looked wild and angry and untamed and violent. For the first time since Javert had been here, he saw the convict in the forefront.

Instead of sitting in Valjean's chair, Javert stood, leaning against the wall, watching as Valjean exorcised his demons onto the page. He found he was fascinated by watching Valjean's hand. At first, the pen strokes were short and fast and hard, leaving blots on the paper. Abruptly, Valjean broke the point of the pen. With a growl of frustration, he reached for the penknife and re-cut the tip. In his haste, he cut his thumb. Sticking his thumb in his mouth, he looked up without seeing and Javert saw that his eyes were sunken with purple shadows under them.

When he returned to writing, something different had gripped Valjean. He wrote more slowly now, one letter joining into the next in a fluid motion. When he paused for a moment, to dip the pen in the ink, Javert could see that his hand was trembling.

As Javert watched, the raw emotion faded from Valjean's face and he looked more like the man he had come to … to respect, yes, respect, over these last few weeks. When Valjean finished, Javert walked over. He did not know what possessed him, but he reached out his hand and brushed the hair back from Valjean's eyes. Valjean looked up, his face wet with tears running freely down his face, and for a moment, their eyes met. Javert could see the lifetime of pain, of suffering, of fear, of guilt, of isolation that this man had withstood. Shocked, he had pulled his hand back and the moment was gone. Valjean wiped his eyes and said lightly, "I am sorry. Did I wake you?"

Javert shrugged. "Perhaps."

Valjean held the pages he had written over the candle flame and the fire quickly consumed the paper and the words. As the fire flared, the whole room was briefly illuminated. They cast long shadows across the floor. The sudden bright light made Valjean appear even older than usual as the wrinkles on his face cast dark shadows against his pale skin.

Javert was amused to see that Valjean also held the pages as long as it was possible, until the flames nearly burned his fingers, and then he dropped the remains of the paper into a sooty bowl that sat on the desk, the same bowl Javert had dropped the ashes of his own nightmares into on other nights.

Valjean leaned back in the chair and watched as the smoke curled out of the bowl. "It is good to see them burn," he commented. He paused for a moment, studying Javert and then he pushed himself to standing. "Care for a night cap? I could use a spot before going back to bed."

The bandage on his wrist itched and Javert tugged on it. "No," Javert replied. "But I will stay up with you if you want. Go, sit, Jean. I will get it for you."

Valjean looked up at Javert and smiled. "Thank you," he said softly.

Javert gave Valjean a hesitant, even shy, smile in return. "You are welcome," he replied.

* * *

Javert rested his hands on the stone parapet on the side of Quai de la Megisserie and looked down at the dark Seine below. The water's ever changing swirls were mesmerizing, capturing his mind. Motes of light sparkled on the turbulent water, orange from the setting Sun and white from the half Moon, high overhead. Standing half way between the Palais de Justice on his right and Notre Dame on his left, halfway between Pont au Change and Pont Notre Dame, it was easy to let the water carry his thoughts away.

From here he looked across the river to the Île de la Cité. He had been summoned by the Prefect, M. Gisquet, to a meeting to discuss his future employment. Valjean had walked with him this far. Javert had left him when he crossed the river and walked to the meeting in the Palais de Justice.

The meeting had been tense and Gisquet had demanded answers Javert did not have. His fingers tightened on the parapet as he remembered Gisquet's withering tone. "You disappear for three weeks? You come back having lost – what? Ten kilos? You look like you haven't slept in days. What have you been doing?" How could he answer that? Men like him were not incapacitated by nightmares, by visions. Men like him did not try and take their own lives. The bandage itched under the cuff of his shirt sleeve. "Where have you been? Your commissaire went to your apartment and the portress said you had not been there in over a week." Javert had stood, head bowed, hands behind his back. He had shaken his head and muttered his apologies.

With a sigh, Gisquet had walked around the desk and leaned on it, facing Javert. Javert had glanced up at him. In the last three years, there had been, what, ten different prefects? At almost a year in the office, Gisquet had lasted longer than any since Delavau. Gisquet had studied him and Javert felt the weight of those eyes on him still. He had the distinct impression that Gisquet knew far more than he was letting on. "I understand you were recognized at the barricade?"

Javert had nodded. "Yes, sir."

"You were taken captive."

"Yes, sir."

Gisquet straightened and paced across the office. Javert kept his place, waiting for the inevitable question that was coming. "How did they treat you?"

"I was bound, sir."

"Is that all?"

"They did not beat me, if that is what you are asking. They said they would execute me."

"And?"

"One of the rebels had a change of heart. He released me instead of executing me."

"Anything else?"

Javert had stood there frozen. What could he say?

Gisquet had nodded slowly and then walked back behind his desk. "You are obviously not telling me the half of it," he had said as he sat down. "Javert, I want you back here in a week and I want some answers. Depending on what you say, we will discuss your return to the force."

Javert had brought his feet together and bowed. "Yes, sir. Thank you, sir." And he left.

After leaving the Palais de Justice, he had met Valjean and they had walked together to Notre Dame to attend Vespers. The setting sun had blazed through the great rose window as the boys' choir sung the hymns. The service had opened with a lone boy soprano voice, filling the vast open space of the cathedral. _"Deus, in adiutorium meum intende. Domine, ad adiuvandum me festina."_, "O God, come to my assistance. O Lord, make haste to help me."

Javert pressed his fingers into the rough stone of the parapet until they turned white. Valjean put his hand on Javert's shoulder and Javert looked over at him. "What am I to do, Jean?" he asked.

Valjean shook his head. "About what, my friend?"

_My friend?_ Javert looked at Valjean sharply. Yes, by this point, he supposed they were. He tasted the word in his mouth, friend. He did not answer. He looked down into the swirling water and remembered the last time he had stood in this spot. It came flooding back to him. As before, there did not seem to be a path forward.

He stared at the water and remembered how it had felt as the cold and darkness enveloped him. He pushed back from the parapet, shaking his head. No, that was closed to him now. Javert absently patted at his pockets, producing a pencil and a notebook. He flipped the notebook open to the last page he had written on. It was dated June 5th, the day before the barricades. He turned to the next page as he turned his back on both the Palais de Justice and Notre Dame. He leaned up against the parapet and began to write.


	4. August

By August, Javert was back at work. It felt good to be back in the routine, to feel like himself again.

His second interview with the Prefect had been unexpectedly pointed. "Are you sober?" Gisquet had demanded.

Insulted, Javert had stiffened. "Of course, sir!"

Meeting Javert's eyes, his own face hard, Gisquet had continued. "And on duty, you will be sober then?"

Javert did not understand where this line of questioning was coming from. "Yes, sir." He could barely keep the anger out of his voice.

"You support king and will uphold his laws?"

"Of course!"

"You will obey the laws?"

When had he ever done anything else? "Yes. Sir."

"And your superiors?"

"Yes, of course."

"So help you God?"

Javert suddenly straightened, staring at Gisquet hard. When had this become an oath? Could he swear that? Frowning, could he even truly promise what Gisquet had asked him?

As the silence filled the space between them, Gisquet cleared his throat. "I see," he said.

"Sir, I…" Javert started to explain, but Gisquet held up his hand. "We do not require an oath of our officers, Javert. And I am not going to require one from you."

Javert looked at the floor. "Truth is," he began, and then he looked up, "there was a time when I would have taken that oath, without hesitation. Now…" Javert looked at Gisquet, meeting his eyes, "Sir, I can promise to show up sober, to not accept bribes, to do my best to uphold the laws of the land, but I can't do it blindly, sir, not anymore."

Gisquet had leaned back in his chair and studied Javert. The conversation had continued a few minutes more, as Gisquet had pressed further. Javert left the interview exhausted, confused and baffled but he was to return to work in a week's time.

His fellow officers thought that he did not know that they were talking about him, but there were too many times when he walked into the workroom only to have the chatter turn to silence while he walked through. He knew that he himself had changed. He was slower to act, he took more time to listen, he asked more questions, made fewer assumptions. In the end, he made fewer arrests. He tried not to let that bother him.

Although he could not quite bring himself to give up his own apartment, he found himself at Rue l'Homme Armé. almost every night. Where before he would have eaten a solitary dinner in his room, now he found himself sitting at a table with Valjean and Cosette, hearing updates on Marius's health, relaying the more absurd things that happened in the course of his day and discussing the news. After dinner, he would often play a game of cards with them before Cosette retired to her room and Javert and Valjean would move to the sitting room to read or talk. Their conversations were far ranging, but they often came back to the shared events in their lives as they slowly and carefully, probed the wounds they had inflicted on the other.

One night, Javert told Valjean of how he had first come to notice him, one convict among a sea of thousands, as more than a number. "You were to be flogged," Javert began. "I do not remember why."

Valjean looked at him, thoughtfully. "Possession of a file," he said after a moment, his voice curiously without emotion.

Javert said absently, "Yes, that was it." He stood, miming the action with his hands, his eyes distant as he remembered "You seemed so calm when I came up to you. The work crews had been lined up to watch, everything was ready. I remember taking your hands to remove the 'cuffs and being aware of …" he bit his lip, thinking back, "aware of a sense of tremendous power, held back, restrained. A sense of danger. I hesitated. What would happen when I released you?"

Valjean stood and stepped in front of Javert, holding out his hands. He moved slowly, as if caught in Javert's memory. Javert silently closed his hands around Valjean's wrists, feeling the warm pulse under his fingers, the hard skin of the scars that ringed his wrists, scars that he had seen, but never felt. He thought of the countless times he had closed the handcuffs on a prisoner's wrists and he wondered how many people bore marks like these because of him.

Running his thumb over the hard skin, he wondered what Valjean had been like in those days before the handcuffs had first closed around him, before he had become a thief. Curious, that he had never wondered at what had come before, at what kind of man is driven to steal food for children that were not his.

Valjean closed his eyes and replied in a whisper, "I was thinking that the chain on the handcuffs was too long. I was thinking that if I were another man, I could wrap that the chain around your neck and crush your windpipe. I was thinking, if I were another man I could break your neck, faster than the guards, faster than you, could react. I was thinking, you'd make a fine hostage, even if I did not kill you."

Despite himself, Javert felt himself shake at those words and the trembling voice that Valjean delivered them in. Involuntarily, he tightened his grip, tensing for what was to come.

Nothing came. Valjean opened his eyes and met Javert's. "But, I was not ready to die on that day."

Javert released Valjean's wrists and stepped back. Valjean took his left wrist in his right hand, twisting his arm in the grip. Javert said, "I remember the 'cuffs falling away in my hands, and you rubbing your wrists, just like that." Javert nodded towards Valjean's hands. Valjean, with a bemused look stopped and dropped his hands to his side. Javert continued, "The moment of danger was passed. I knew the next few minutes would go according to the script. I could feel it. I took your shirt. As we walked over, do you know what I remember?"

Valjean shook his head. "No."

"Dignity. I did not see that much. The bagne…" Javert paused and looked over Valjean's shoulder, his eyes distant, "…_I_ did what I could to eradicate that." Javert looked back at Valjean, finding the courage to meet his eyes. "There was nothing that we, the guards…" he looked away and continued in a whisper, "that I feared more."

"Go on," Valjean quietly urged.

"You kept that dignity, that composure. They went to force you to your knees and you would not let them. You kneeled on your own terms. As the flogging began, a chant went up from the of the assembled convicts, 'Jean le Cric…Jean le Cric', and I saw the guards move to stop it. Then, it was over and I walked you to the infirmary. I don't think I saw you again for a few days after that, but when I did, the moment was gone. The _presence_ that had emanated from you was not there. You were … you were just a…" Javert looked away as shame at his long ago actions hit him, but he forced himself to go on. "Just a dangerous beast, again. Held at bay by the chains, the club, the backbreaking work." He shook his head, surprised to feel unshed tears in his eyes. When he spoke again, his voice shook, "I was left wondering if I had imagined it all."

They stood an arm's length apart. Valjean broke the silence between them. "That was the day I first noticed you, as well, as something other than a blue uniform with a club."

Javert looked up, "Really?"

"Do you know why?"

It was Javert's turn to shake his head.

"Earlier that day, you called me by name, you questioned me calmly. Another guard would have clubbed me for not answering, even though I did not know. And after the flogging, you draped my shirt over my shoulders, you did not throw it at me or drop it on the ground at my feet."

They stood in silence, looking at each other. Javert slowly realized that the dignity that he had observed was something that his actions had helped to create. Both of them had had years of training at suppressing the humanity of the convicts. Despite that, he marveled that there could be a shared moment of recognition, of human connection in a place such as Toulon.

Abruptly, he turned from Valjean. "I want a drink," Javert said.

Valjean looked up, "Me, too. Shall I pour?"

Javert shook his head with a sigh, idly rubbing his own scarred wrist. "No, I shouldn't. You can go ahead, though."

* * *

Another night he sat, silently staring at nothing while Valjean read the paper. The day had been a bad one. An arrest had gone sour, what he had thought was one suspect had turned out to be two, and Javert had found himself pinned to the ground by one, his handcuffs in the other's hand. They had somehow wrestled one of the bracelets onto Javert. In the ensuing struggle, one of the two suspects had been killed, the other subdued with a blow to the head, and the young officer who had come to his aid had been stabbed in the leg.

He was thinking about writing, when Valjean interrupted his thoughts. "Should I be worried?" he asked quietly.

Torn from his reverie, he looked at Valjean. "What?"

Valjean looked pointedly at Javert's hand. "Your handcuffs," he said quietly. "You have been fingering them in your pocket all night."

Javert blinked and yanked his hand away. "I have?"

Valjean nodded. He folded the paper and set it aside. "What is bothering you? Or would you rather…" he indicated to the desk.

Frowning, Javert shook his head. "No," he said. "Can we talk?"

"If you wish."

Javert pulled the handcuffs from his pocket and held them in his hands, staring at them as he spoke. He told Valjean of the arrest that had gone wrong, of how his 'cuffs had been taken from him. When he felt himself immobilized on the ground and the first one close around his wrist, he was literally in a nightmare he had had repeatedly since the barricades, a nightmare where he was overpowered and bound. In chains, he was taken somewhere, his fate no longer his to control. Sometimes, the nightmare was on the street, other times, it was at the barricade. Meanwhile, the other officer was fighting bravely, getting injured, and Javert was useless, frozen in a time past, in a place that had never been.

Silently, Valjean listened.

"Jean," he said, "I have carried handcuffs for almost my entire life. I could not begin to count the thousands of times, the tens of thousands of times I have put them on another person. I have never once worn them. I have never thought about how, when I lock the bracelets around someone's wrist, I am taking something from them." Suddenly he blinked, remembering whom he was talking to. "Oh god. This must sound ludicrous to you."

Valjean shook his head. "No," he said softly.

Javert leaned forward, putting his elbows on his knees, running his fingers through his hair. He looked at his shoes. "I don't know what to do, Jean. I do not know what to do." He looked up, his eyes pleading, "How can you live like this?"

Valjean stood and walked over to Javert. He picked up the handcuffs from where Javert had left them, draped over the arm of the chair. As he perched on the arm of the chair, he held them lightly in his fingers, turning them over as he examined them before setting them aside.

Valjean started to reach out, his hand hesitating before he put it on Javert's back. Javert did not look up. Miserably, Javert spoke, "How can you forgive me, Jean?"

Valjean put his other hand on Javert's cheek, running his fingers through the sideburns, pulling gently. Javert responded to the pressure, turning his head and looking up. When he met Valjean's eyes, Valjean spoke softly, "You are asking the wrong questions."

"I am?" Javert said. "What should I be asking?"

Valjean lightly stroked Javert's cheek with his thumb. "You should be asking, 'How can I forgive _myself_?'"

Javert closed his eyes, leaning his head slightly into the touch. The truth of Valjean's words hit him. "Why is it so hard, Jean?" He opened his eyes, imploringly. "Why? The path was always clear, before."

Valjean stood and took Javert's hands, drawing him up and into his arms. Javert was a few inches taller, but standing so close, Javert appreciated the sheer physical power that, despite the years, Valjean still possessed. Javert returned the embrace and bent his head to put his forehead against Valjean's. For the first time since he was a child, he relaxed and let another person support him.

* * *

This story benefited from the thoughtful comments of several different readers at different points in its construction. My original plan was to write what Javert was writing, but miseres convinced me that was not a good idea. Stephantom gave me some vital early encouragement. Esteven, Stripy and DrCalvin all beta read it and gave me some incredible pointers that deepened the characters and brought them more in line with who they should be. Finally bluedog gave it a final SPAG read. Despite all of their efforts, there continue to be flaws in the story (and some are rather large) and those are mine. I can't begin the count the hours over the months of July and August that I wrote and rewrote and deleted and wrote again. This is the best I could do with this prompt - and if you have read this far, thank you for sticking with me.


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